Hit and Damage detection

[Ikael]

Today I worked little bit investigating how we could implement hit & damage detection/calculation in Savage Worlds, see the attached image. This is very simple solution and it won't do super math such as situational rules for you, just very simple math of how to hit and damage. I don't know if this is going to be included in Savage Worlds v4.0 ruleset since we don't want to push too many changes there anymore, but I will definitely include it in new Enhanced Combat Tracker extension if not in core ruleset.

Note that this feature OPTIONAL! You are not required to use this anyways, it is just matter of how you and GM feels playing. If you want to use this option, your rolls should be dragged from sheet and dropped on Tokens on map. Benefits using this approach:


Well you see if you hit, for raise and did damage :P
If you do Raise in attack roll, the damage bonus is highlighted automatically for you
It will detect if roll is against Parry or just 4, depending on skill used. If you want to do attack against Parry no matter what (in case of ranged weapon in melee) you can hold CTRL down and attack.
Dunno if we could calculate range penalties as well??? -- This would require Range to have very own field in weapon details~ current ruleset doesn't support this.


There are still few issues to tackle:

Armor Piercing is not represented as numberic value in current ruleset so it's hard to take account in damage calculation without code changes there as well. If not included in core ruleset then modules are NOT updated to match these requirements and drag-and-drop equipment needs to be adjusted manually to support AP in calculation.
Should wounds be automatically applied to victims? Usually Extras die after first wound and Wild Card are 90% cases going to use bennies in Soak attempt. At the moment I have provided option to define if wounds should be applied automatically or not. What about Shaken? -- Personally I think it should be applied automatically no matter what, no?
How result texts and icons should be presented? If there are some fans who like this feature idea, I might need your help defining icons and texts here. In Savage Worlds I think there might be good to have at least following icons: Melee miss, Melee hit, Melee Raise, Ranged miss, Ranged hit, Ranged Raise, Shaken, Wounded, Incapaciated. What else?


More about this soon...

[Mask_of_winter]

The option to spend bennies to soak wounds should definitely be taken into account for auto-apply wounds. Even for Extras. The GMs may want to spend one of his bennies. Also, the Extra may be a pc ally and he has an edge to allows him to spend a benny on. Perhaps a chat prompt asking if you want to spend a benny similar to the /vote command?

Also, not sure if this is currently supported but the ability to modify WC and Extras in the Combat Tracker (since I assume the targetting uses the CT) on the fly without altering it's source (personalities or character sheet) would be essential in my opinion.

In my Beasts and Barbarians game, the PCs used "lower trait" on the baddy's Vigor. Lowering it's Toughness was an easy mouse wheel scroll down but it's Vigor couldn't be altered without first accessing it's NPC sheet.

Thanks for this Ikael. It's like you just built a giant baby pacifier lol

[Coanunn]

I'll be honest, I think the wounds should not be applied automatically, or if they are it must be a "pending wound" that must be confirmed. Again could be an optional toggle to determine if they are output or applied. There is always the option to spend the benny for soak and if you do so the penalties from the wound do not apply as it "hasn't happened yet" at that point mechanically. Just the output of how many wounds is a huge benefit even if people stop with that step.

Does this take into account the shaken + shaken again rule? Does it take into account the shaken + shaken with a wound rule? Those are probably the two biggest stumbling blocks many people have mechanically with the system when it comes to damage adjudication.

I also agree with Eric that it seems like there would need to be a functionality there that tracked an "active" npc sheet for a personality in combat so that I don't have to open that sheet to edit target numbers constantly and can instead do it in the CT and have it update automatically. That seems like a pretty complex change based on my understanding of how the connection works currently.

Last but not least, THANK YOU!! Awesome to see a viable option for that available.

[Irondrake]

Sounds great Ikael! Would it be possible to determine the hit/shaken/raises on the token that is currently targeted by the active participant in the combat tracker instead or in addition to dragging the roll from the sheet onto the token that is already targeted?

[Doswelk]

Sounds great, I have to admit I can think of too many ways to break it (lower trait power is the easiest), I suspect the amount of extra fiddling I would need to do on the combat tracker to make it work (Sometimes I really hate the no poet points rules!), I suspect I will not use this one, as I so used too doing it all in my head (face-to-face, con games) but I know people have been asking for it for some time...

[Ikael]

Ok few quick answers:



Current version takes account shaken + shaken rules, and will even check for Hardy ability which could affect the output.
I have plans to implement way where dices are not needed to be dropped on token, instead targeting and rolling is enough. There will be option to set this on or off. -- won't do
I will NOT include Combat Tracker entry adjustment features to manage changes in attributes/derived stats. Lack of this is major flaw (even in my opinion) but still the tool can be useful in 80% cases. I have had plans for this kinda feature for long time, but now I skip it in this phase.
Auto-apply damage will be all-of-nothing feature. There is option to select if damages should be applies automatically or not. If it's set on then rolled result it applied without any confirmation. If it's set off, then GM has to manually apply wounds to victim. I don't want to make this tool too systematic. Maybe damage could be dragged from chat and dropped on CT entry to apply it, not sure yet.
As bonus feature I have been thinking to add option where Joker bonus would be included automatically to your character rolls when you have Joker in Combat Tracker


Personally I would use this feature only in certain games where Parry adjustments are not so frequent. Zombie horde games comes to my find initially :) This is not going to be works-always feature, but I want to include this because it seems to be hype in all other rulesets as well. But users must understand that Savage Worlds is flexible system and coding all possible scenarios is not going to happen. This tool will help beginners and no questions about it.

But ok, if other community memebers would like to help me graphically. Like I wrote, I think we would need several icons which are displayed in chat for attack and damage results. If anyone has artistic insight, let me know.

[Coanunn]

But ok, if other community memebers would like to help me graphically. Like I wrote, I think we would need several icons which are displayed in chat for attack and damage results. If anyone has artistic insight, let me know.

I'd love to help but I have no artistic talent what so ever. If it's busy work I can definitely do some of that after my trip at the end of the month, just remember I have an unskilled die for Gimp-FU!

[Mask_of_winter]

Give me a list of exactly what you need and the specs (dimensions, resolution, etc.) and I'll see what I can do.

[Coanunn]

Has anyone thought to drop Doug a note and find out if the license allows the use of things like the status markers that were just released by PEG? That could be a source for the images right there to keep it Savage.

[Mask_of_winter]

Has anyone thought to drop Doug a note and find out if the license allows the use of things like the status markers that were just released by PEG? That could be a source for the images right there to keep it Savage.
That's what I suggested here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?14590-How-to-improve-the-Savage-Worlds-ruleset&p=185558&viewfull=1#post185558
But it didn't get any traction.

[Irondrake]

I have plans to implement way where dices are not needed to be dropped on token, instead targeting and rolling is enough. There will be option to set this on or off. -- won't do.


Does this mean target and roll won't work?

[Ikael]

[/LIST]

Does this mean target and roll won't work?

It means that I will not do it because it causes several issues, sorry about this. My idea was that when you had targeted someone and you're active in CT all of your rolls would be against targeted people. Well what if you need to make roll that is not against that person? You would need to de-select it and roll. I still would love to see it done, but I don't have idea how to implement it as "bullet-proof". I don't want to limit that rolls from attacklist does this and from attributes or skills does that, all rolls should be equal because people play differently, other roll from attacklist, others prefer to use skills instead

[Ikael]

Alright, some small updates: I have made changes where AP and armor are taken account in damage calculation, but next major thing that comes to my mind is how to determine PC armor? You see PCs does not have any one place to put their armor value, instead it's directly typed in the Toughness. There is an option to use alternate way to define Derived Stats where you can setup several modifier to your base values but still we cannot determine armor values directly from there because some might be permanant toughness bonuses (Brawny for example, armor piercing doesn't pierce this...). So how should we determine what is PC's total armor value? -- I would like to support both derived stat setup approaches so I cannot rely on Toughness modifiers. Any ideas? Should there be own field for in in inventory armor or maybe armor entries could be marked as equiped/enabled? -- What if person uses Armor power -- should it be recorded somewhere as well?

[Mask_of_winter]

What if just like with the traditionnal SW stat block Armor is next to Toughness. Would it be too much trouble to create another Derived Stat for Armor?

[Ikael]

What if just like with the traditionnal SW stat block Armor is next to Toughness. Would it be too much trouble to create another Derived Stat for Armor?

That's actually very good idea, however I want to avoid overlapping the Toughness text, which makes it harder to setup there, but here is first attempt, see the attached image.

[Ikael]

Here is little bit more advenced idea. I like the idea of providing ARMOR as "sub-stat" next to toughness in character sheet (and in minisheet). If you enable Auto-update Derived Stats option, then you can open Armor bonuslist (by double-clicking, middle-mouse clicking of selecting modifiers in right click menu). In this list instead of providing one free list of modifiers there is equipment list which will list all of your Armors from your inventory that (1) Provide Protection and (2) are Carried. You cannot edit your equipment armor details there but you can mark them as "equipped" so their Protection is calculated into Armor value. You can also use the free list to include any other additional Armor bonuses (such as Armor Power's benefit). Whenever Armor "sub-stat" value changes it will be reflected in Toughness bonuslist as [Armor]~ and thus editing your Armor will affect final Toughness as well. Remember that this automatization works only if you set the Auto-update Derived Stats option to ON, otherwise you can handle everythying manually.

How does this sounds/feel like?

[Ikael]

I have attached development version of Hit and Damage detection feature in this post. The feature comes from three extensions:


SW Base for Hit and Damage Detection: This provides background changes to make the targeting work as expected. Ben, if you're reading this then these are the changes that are included in the Pull Request.
Enhanced Character Sheet: This provides Armor sub-stat feature so that PCs have separate armor value which is taken account in damage calculation (armor vs AP). See previous post for more details how this works
Enhanced Combat Tracker: The real magic is here (but won't work correctly without two other extensions as well). You can drag any trait or damage and if you drop it on tokens on map it will be targeted attack/damage against that token. The output is very similar to normal trait/damage roll but it will include calculation if attack missed/hit/raised or if damage was dealt. to target. The tool takes account is attack melee or ranged attack (roll versus parry or 4). IF you want to force ranged attack to be against parry you can hold ALT key down while attacking. If the attack is a raise, then Damage Bonus is highlighted automatically. Damage calculation takes account armor minues AP, Shaken status, Hardy ability and the output can be automatically applied to combatant if new "Auto-apply Damage" option is set ON. Note that Weaponsheet is updated to have own AP field. You should populate this field manually to make it work in auto calculation. If attack/damage is done against NPC then all characteristic values (parry, toughness, armor) are read from combat tracker and NOT from NPC Sheet, if you need to adjust these values for given combatant do it in CT. PC characteristics are read from PC Sheet normally. In build 2, you can alternatively target your victims normally, hold CTRL down and make any roll by double-clocking or dragging and dropping to chat. This will target given rolls against your current targets. Note that this only works for active combatant. In addition new option provided to auto-apply Joker bonus to trait & damage rolls if you have combat tracker window open.


Now I hope people could give this a try and give feedback about it. I might not be able to make changes atm, but still it's valuable information for the future. Especially I am interesting in hearing how attack and damage output messages should be formatted and what kinda icons could be used to make it more groovy. Also feedback about new armor sub-stat is important: is it enough intuitive and easy to use-- especiall when auto-update derived stats option is on? Any feature idea is welcome here because I tend to see things only in one way.

Please note that this is still development version but I have checked that it works out without significant bugs. Another note, when these extensions are enabled you need to recreate your trait/damage hotkeys because there is incompatibility issues regarding them. Nothing is destroyed, but your trait/damage hotkeys won't work as expected.

The most important note: THESE EXTENSIONS WORKS ONLY IN SAVAGE WORLDS V4.0 RULESET. You can get this dev version ruleset if you enable DEV-mode and update your FG. Backup your existing campaign before using SW4 with those.

Further feature ideas relating to targeting attacks and damages


Damage confirmation panel: Collects all targeted damage roll details and has field for dropping Soak roll results which would reduce damage. There is button to confirm damage and it would transfer it to victim
Improved Effects: Combat tracker effects should alter derived stats and rolls, ie. When character has Wild Attack effect he would automatically get +2 to attack and damage rolls, but -2 to parry
Damage adjustment next to chat/modifierstack: Few new component (similar to auto-apply wounds/fatigue/encumbrance) which provides at least following features: Ignore armor completely (a toggle), situational/single-case Armor adjustment (numberfield)


EDIT: Attached extensions removed because their content was merged into core Savage Worlds v4 ruleset

[Coanunn]

I will give this a good bashing tonight or tomorrow before I leave town for the weekend, you are doing a ton of work on it and it's looking great!

That said, and remember I haven't installed it I'm just going on what I'm reading here when you added the advanced option to have the character's inventory parsed for armor carried does it still give the GM/Player the option to make adhock armor changes as well such as the armor power, the character getting armor from cover, etc. Initially I had assumed AP would be a much deeper pool and would fall purely in the "do it manually" arena when you announced this feature so I hadn't worried about those cases, now that you are adding this I wonder if we are creating the never ending monster of each special case you add, AP for instance, adds an exponential level of complexity. I certainly appreciate this functionality being added as it is a big part of what people see Fantasy Grounds as capable of doing but I guess I wonder at you tackling it during the current update cycle as it is quite a lot of work.

[damned]

purely from an aesthetic point of view you might make the Text Column left aligned or narrower to give your bonus field some more room.
maybe once you start down this field other derived stats might get similar treatment and need the space too?

[Ikael]

purely from an aesthetic point of view you might make the Text Column left aligned or narrower to give your bonus field some more room.
maybe once you start down this field other derived stats might get similar treatment and need the space too?

What Text Column do you mean? Derived stats? -- I tested how it looks when text is left aligned but it doesn't look good at all. Derived stats should be in the very middle of the main page and their texts is the highlight of them. I have already made derived stat frame more wider to make text and all field fit there without text/field overlap. In addition if I placed the armor field next to the field (not overlapping) then it looked out of place because no other derived stat had that kinda field.


I will give this a good bashing tonight or tomorrow before I leave town for the weekend, you are doing a ton of work on it and it's looking great!

That said, and remember I haven't installed it I'm just going on what I'm reading here when you added the advanced option to have the character's inventory parsed for armor carried does it still give the GM/Player the option to make adhock armor changes as well such as the armor power, the character getting armor from cover, etc.

See the attached image in above posts, you can see that Armor bonuslist allows you two things: equipment bonues and free bonuses. Each one has tickbox to enable/disable it so you can use free bonuses to create any number of additional armor modifiers very similar way as you do in any other derived stats (note that you can create more than one modifier!! Right click the list and select create new). This however works only for PCs. NPCs doesn't have such feature because their derived stats are just simple numbers.


Initially I had assumed AP would be a much deeper pool and would fall purely in the "do it manually" arena when you announced this feature so I hadn't worried about those cases, now that you are adding this I wonder if we are creating the never ending monster of each special case you add, AP for instance, adds an exponential level of complexity.

Like I have said, this feature is never going to be bullet-proof but it should be able to handle basic cases such as armor and AP. If you would have to do AP vs Armor manually (but want to use the feature anyways) then it's more about tweaking your armor value all the time, which is more work than just roll and calculate it yourself! What kind of situations are you thinking that might cause issues for this? Some special abilities for AP that works only in case A or B? -- Not that those might be implemented because the world is so big, but I am glad to hear about them :)


I certainly appreciate this functionality being added as it is a big part of what people see Fantasy Grounds as capable of doing but I guess I wonder at you tackling it during the current update cycle as it is quite a lot of work.

One thing to clarify here. This feature at the moment is not confirmed to be in ruleset itself (EDIT: It's now confirmed that it WILL be included). I am not the main developer of Savage Worlds ruleset, I just do change requests/proposals for it (and lots of code). And there is one major thing: The SW Base for Hit and Damage Detection_v0.1_build1.ext (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=7520&d=1411501682) extension contains lots of minor background changes which are required to make this work at all. Now I have requested to push them into core ruleset, but I don't know if that's going to happen. If it does not then I have issues because I personally don't want to maintain that extension. It will get broken more often than any other because it have changes in so many places (small changes but quantity beats the hell out of me). It would also make hard for me to develope new feature in extensions because I would always have to check if they are overlapping/clashing with other extension. That's something I don't want to do. So even if we have working version of the feature I don't know if I want to keep it up if parts of it are not in core ruleset. Heck I would want to push all these changes to core ruleset but I am not the one making choises here and I totally understand why there are doubts to push them in.

[Coanunn]

The biggest situational rule I can see is Flame and most AOE hits the "least armored" location. Again, I had assumed this would all be handled manually so it being missing is not an issue but you asked what rules/situations I foresaw. The other would be called shots meant to bypass armor.

Honestly, you jumped on the grenade on this one. This is a function that exists in the other rulesets and is one of the marketed strengths of Fantasy Grounds which Smiteworks had determined not to include with Savage Worlds. We've all had the lengthy talk about the why's on both sides and I didn't even get involved until the most recent version but that conversation has been going on for some time. It is a very big change in that it casts a very large net in what it changes but if nothing else your work may be the core that lets this become a major feature change for the full ruleset perhaps after the version 4 release for the following patch. As to the function being an extension vs core, I completely understand but if you hadn't taken the time it wouldn't even be an option for them to push it thus the Thanks stands!

[Mask_of_winter]

I don't think Smiteworks determined not to include targeting. Savage Worlds ruleset developers made that choice. Moon wizard introduced this feature with dnd 4e. Then Smiteworks hired him. They made 3.5 and pathfinder work that way. Then came Core and all his rulesets were layered on top of CoreRpg which enabled him to update all supported rulesets more easily. A year later, Savage Worlds is joining the party.

[Ikael]

Ok, I added more bullets here, new development version is here including following features:

Instead of just dragging and dropping trait/damage on token you can do it as ACTIVE combatant by targeting your victims normally, hold down CTRL key and make any Trait/Damage roll by double-clicking or dragging and dropping to chat. I am extremely happy about this feature, I am not fan of dropping dices accurately on token, this just makes it more easy to use!! Note that only currently active combatant can do this.
Auto-apply Joker bonus feature: New option provided to set this feature on/off. When enabled, +2 is added to your Trait and Damage rolls if you have Joker in your combat tracker and you have the tracker window open. Note that Chasetracker is not supported by this, only the original Combat Tracker.


Ok, now I am taking pause since I have reached what I really wanted. At first I thought this is just another hyped thing that I might not use but I have become more attracted how it can smooth up things, and especially now that I don't have to drop attacks/damages on token, but just target, hold CTRL down and do it makes it very usable for me. Now only if we could have the background changes merged into core ruleset I could relax, otherwise I might just make this my personal tool. I still hope to have feedback from this, maybe one day it can be part of core ruleset?

Irondrake: I believe this feature is what you requested as well.

[Moon Wizard]

Another idea I've been considering is a toggle next to dice/chat that would specify whether rolls directly to chat window would use current targets info source actor or untargeted (current behavior).

Cheers,
JPG

[Ikael]

Another idea I've been considering is a toggle next to dice/chat that would specify whether rolls directly to chat window would use current targets info source actor or untargeted (current behavior).

Cheers,
JPG

Good idea, and in addition there could be SW-related buttons/components such as Ignore Armor ~ you toggle this on for example when swarm attack non-fully-armored person, Armor modifier ~where you would record situational armor changes such as shield provides +x armor against ranged. What else? Basically these are similar to auto-apply wounds idea. I am not going to implement these yet, but they are good ideas.

[Ikael]

I have added further feature idea section to this post (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22156-Hit-and-Damage-detection&p=187841&viewfull=1#post187841) where you can get extension. Please check'em out and let me know if you find other ideas or situations where auto hit / damage detection might fail

[Irondrake]

Awesome! That's exactly what I was hoping for Ikael! I will try it out as soon as I can.

[Ikael]

Minor update to BaseHitDamage extension (build 3). New menu option for damagedice field (Right click -> EDIT -> SETUP). This can be used to setup damage string and AP for any damage entry. This is useful for powers which did not have these beforehand, but you can also use them to setup damage and AP for any other weapon/attack. Their values are the same as in weapon details. In addition if attack has AP it will be rendered next to damage dices.

[Ikael]

I am glad to announce that these features are included into Savage Worlds v4 ruleset (I have removed attached extensions from this post). However I want to focus that even if these features are included into core ruleset it does not mean that they work 100% correctly in all exceptional situations that you might encounter in Savage Worlds. User's common sense is the most important factor when using hit & damage detection. What can it do for you?

Simple comparision of roll against opponent's defense value (aka. parry of 4) and output of how well given attack succeeded. In case of Raise roll maker's damage bonus is highlighted automatically
Tool will detect wheter opponent's Parry value or 4 should be used to defend against trait rolls. If you want to force Parry to be used, hold down ALT during the attack roll.
Simple comparision of damage roll against opponent's Toughness. The tool knows Shaken+Shaken rules, and would output a wound in case of Shaken victim becomes Shaken again (but does not get wounds in that attack). Tool understand that Hardy ability will prevent wounds in Shaken+Shaken situations.
Damage roll takes account attack's AP value (if it's set in weapon details!!) and opponent's Armor value (against must be set beforehand) ~ Ie. opponent's Toughness is reduced if attack has AP value and opponent has some armor. Remember that character's Toughness value should be the total Toughness (including armor value). The additional armor value just states how much of your Toughness is provided by armor and can be pierced by AP weapons.
Optionally GM can declare that all damage rolls will inflict wounds and shaken results automatically to victims. There is new option to determine this.


What the tool does not manage:

Any situational rules: For instance if opponent is wielding shield, the tool does not understand to grant +2 armor against ranged attacks. Users have to manage these manually.

[Ikael]

I have made few changed in Enhanced Extension which covers some Hit & Damage detection-related features. I have added several (4) new fields and icons next to modifierstack to adjust targeted rolls.

First there is targeting icon which can be clicked on/off to make next roll targeted roll. This is alternative way to make targeted roll. Originally you can do it by holding CTRL down while making the roll. When the targeting icon is enabled it's highlighted more, similar way apply wound/fatigue/encumbrance icons are highlighted. When you hold CTRL down it will display as enabled.

Then there are three fields below Damage Bonus:

Armor adjustment: This field can be used to adjust victim's armor value. Only positive numbers can be input. This is useful for instance in case of Shield which could grant you +1 - +2 bonus to armor against ranged attack. This is situational bonus and does not apply to all rolls.
Armor Piercing adjument: Some situational attacks might just beat victim's armor more than others. For instance, in case of swarms they can ignore your armor completely if you don't have completely sealed armor. I would use this field in such case to increase AP to ignore armor completely
Damage multiplier: Some situations or abilities might adjust damage to be doubled or halved. For instance person with Dead Blow/Aim with Joker can double damage or when certain Adventure Card is played, or some Demons would only suffer half damage from any other than cold-iron weapons. This is userful in such cases.


Note that these fields must be enabled/used by the attacker and they last only for the next roll.

Personally I could imaging situation where GM states that you need to mark your damage as halved because you don't have correct type of weapon, or that put +2 to Armor because your opponent has shield.

How do you feel about these changes? Could they cover exception situations we have been talking about? Any other thoughts? There is an option to turn these off if you don't like them.

Can you imaging some other situation which cannot be covered with these adjustments?

[Coanunn]

Ok, so apparently I am doing something completely wrong! I finally got a chance last night to test this and couldn't get it to work at all. I have the most recent v4 updates, I have all of the extensions and nothing I did allowed me to set a hit detection option in the menu. I tried just holding control while doing the roll both in the combat tracker and from the sheet of each participant, I tried having my players do this, and at no time did we get anything other than the normal FG functionality. I highly doubt it's a bug but much more likely it is something I did wrong, but yeah it didn't work for us last night in any manner.

[Ikael]

Ok, so apparently I am doing something completely wrong! I finally got a chance last night to test this and couldn't get it to work at all. I have the most recent v4 updates, I have all of the extensions and nothing I did allowed me to set a hit detection option in the menu. I tried just holding control while doing the roll both in the combat tracker and from the sheet of each participant, I tried having my players do this, and at no time did we get anything other than the normal FG functionality. I highly doubt it's a bug but much more likely it is something I did wrong, but yeah it didn't work for us last night in any manner.

The issue at the moment is that current version of Savage Worlds v4 in DEV-mode does not include it yet. I don't know why but it was never pushed there although we have the build done long ago. To be honest DEV-mode seems to offer very old version of SW4 build. We will be moving the beta testing phase after FG Con so at least then the feature should be available, maybe earlier if Smitework pushes the latest build 8 into DEV-mode. However even that build is little bit behind the development snapshot version.

[Ikael]

Thanks to Moon Wizard the build 8 I was refereing is now available via FG Updater if you use DEV-mode. Also make sure to get the latest Enhanced Desktop extension from this post (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22039-Ikael-s-extensions-for-Savage-Worlds-4-testing) to get all goodies mentioned above.

[Mask_of_winter]

What's the difference between the "default" and "smart" raise calculator?
I tried the token targeting with auto-apply damage. Everything works as advertised. Good job man!
Granted you are using a map and tokens this is a nice addition to the ruleset.

[Ikael]

What's the difference between the "default" and "smart" raise calculator?

There is only small difference: When using Default mode you can drag any number and drop it to either field in raise calculator to assign it there. However in Smart mode when you drag number and drop it on the tool, the tool itself will decide to which field it should be assigned to, no basically no matter where you drop your number the tool will use some "intelligence". The "intelligence" is simple: If your dragged number is Derived Stat then assign it to Target, otherwise to Score. The reason behind this mode is that there is no case in Savage Worlds to make Derived Stat a score, it's always target number. If Derived Stat is not used as target, then it's always 4 according to rules.

But my favorite way to manage this is to double-click any number on CT or in sheet to assign it automatically to Raise Calcualtor (instead of slow drag-and-drop). For instance in combat tracker is targeting is used, targeted entries are highlighted in blue so I can easily find it, double click that entry's parry and/or toughness to quickly assign it to raise calculator. When character makes roll, I just drag the result in chat on raise calculator and I see the output.



I tried the token targeting with auto-apply damage. Everything works as advertised. Good job man!

Thanks :) There is more yet to come slowly-but-surely


Granted you are using a map and tokens this is a nice addition to the ruleset.

Even if you are not using maps you can still utilize targeting feature. As GM you can hold down CTRL and click token on combat tracker to mark it as targeted for currently active combatant. Thereafter everything else is like you do with maps.
EDIT: Sorry this statement is not 100% true, you still need to assign tokens on map/image so full targeting support is granted. You don't have to use tokens on map, but they must exist in one for targeting to work. I might check if this could be skipped in future versions, but for now targeting & hit/damage detection only works for battles where tokens are on map

[Ikael]

That said, I might need to focus on Chase Tracker as well, because it lack some features (pointed to me by Doswelk, thanks). Targeting and auto-apply-Joker features might be very useful there as well

[Ikael]

Some time ago I was asking if people would be willing to help me to define targeting and result icons which would be diplayed in chat when targeting is used. CoreRPG provides icons to deal these, but it would be nice to have Savage Worlds-related icons. Personally I believe following icons are nice to have:


Melee attack Missed
Melee attack Hit
Melee attack Raised
Ranged attack Missed
Ranged attack Hit
Ranged attack Raised
Damage: Unharmed
Damage: Shaken
Damage: 1 Wound
Damage: 2 Wounds
Damage: 3 Wounds
Damage: 4 Wounds
Damage: n Wounds (4 wounds are enough to take anyone out, so beyond that this icon is used)


If we have interested artists within community who would like to provide helping hand, it would be very much approaciated because personally I am not savvy in creating new graphics.

To help to work I have provided small extension to this post: SW Targeting Icons Tester
This extension allows you to test your icons in practise. Within the extension you can find .png files regarding all above mentioned icons. and the benefit in the tool is that if you want to try out your version of icons just replace existing ones within the extension, enable it in your FG and type one of the following slash-commands:



/test
/showoff


These commands will show you how your icons would look like in practise. So instead of trying to reproduce wanted situations you can see the output with simple slash-command. Showoff command provides more real fight-looking output while test provides just icons without real context. If we get some nice icons I am willing to update existing codebase to support them. You can post your updates either to this thread or send me PM/email regarding it.

[Irondrake]

We've finally gotten a chance to test this (was hoping to just wait til it hit the test slot, but couldn't wait any longer ;). One thing we've noticed is that every time someone presses control, targeting is turned off for them. There's a little button right above the + Damage d6 at the bottom of the screen that is affected by Control Key presses. When that is lit up, targetting works fine, when it is dim, targetting does not work. It is toggled with the Control key, which is the same key needed to target a token on the map or in the tracker. Is there some way to keep that little button from being disabled by Control presses? I can see at least two of my players getting rather frustrated by that.

[Ikael]

We've finally gotten a chance to test this (was hoping to just wait til it hit the test slot, but couldn't wait any longer ;). One thing we've noticed is that every time someone presses control, targeting is turned off for them. There's a little button right above the + Damage d6 at the bottom of the screen that is affected by Control Key presses. When that is lit up, targetting works fine, when it is dim, targetting does not work. It is toggled with the Control key, which is the same key needed to target a token on the map or in the tracker. Is there some way to keep that little button from being disabled by Control presses? I can see at least two of my players getting rather frustrated by that.

EDITED to be more detailed:

In newest version (not released yet) that is possible with new preference options. By original design that is intended behavior. CTRL is meant to toggle targeting on and off. You can make sure you will do targeting by holding CTRL down while making the roll, so first you should do targeting on map normally ignoring of targeting icon is on or off and when you're about to make the roll start holding CTRL down and drag your dices or double-click to make the roll (when you are dragging or see dices rolling you can let go already). Targeting is not meant to be enabled on all the time only when roll is about to be made.

However in the newest version we provide alternative ways to do targeting to support different play styles. For instance this hold CTRL down become non-default approach, but you can enable it in preference options. The default style is that you either drag-and-drop dices on token or you manually have to click the targeting toggle on/off. Actually in the current development version the targeting toggle has three new state: OFF / ON / TARGETING FORCED AGAINST PARRY. The last state is to allow you to make ranged attack roll against parry if situation requires that. If you want to use shortcut keys, then you can enable basic targeting by holding CTRL down, if you want to enable "targeting forced against parry" you must hold ALT down.

The main reason why shortcut keys become optional is that they interfer hotkey usages. People who want to use hotkeys should always disable targeting shortcut keys, other like me, when GMing who don't put rollable dices in hotkeys can consider using targeting shortcut keys. At least for myself it makes my GMing so much faster when I can quickly target victims for NPCs on map, hold CTRL down and double-click trait on their CT entry.

Thanks for the feedback by the way! There are several play styles and we don't want to force you to use single style. We might need to document targeting feature because it's so new feature and seems to be unintuitive for SW users who stumble at it first time.

[Ikael]

Savage Worlds 4.0 build 9 is almost available in DEV-mode. This build has lots of improvements in Hit & Damage detection, but in addition to those, I have also worked my Enhanced Extensions slightly. My currently favorite new feature: "Damage Confirmation" is just released Enhanced Combat Tracker v1.6 build 3 (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=7728&stc=1&d=1413841997) (you can find it from this post (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22039-Ikael-s-extensions-for-Savage-Worlds-4-testing&p=186351&viewfull=1#post186351)). This feature can be enabled by selecting new preference state in "Auto-apply Damage" option called "confirm".

When the feature is enabled and you make targeted damage roll, the result is displayed in chat normally, but instead of applying results directly to victim, the result is also rendered below combatant in combat tracker. Thereafter GM has options to adjust the damage roll score, effective toughness or even assign soak roll result, and three of these values will output the result which GM and apply or cancel with press of button. See attached images.

EDIT: Small update on this feature, new Enhanced Combat Tracker (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22039-Ikael-s-extensions-for-Savage-Worlds-4-testing&p=186351&viewfull=1#post186351) extension uploaded to support following feature: Any number can be dragged and dropped on Combat Tracker entry's token icon to add that score as damage against given combatant. The damage won't auto-apply, instead it will create confirmation entry.

[Ikael]

Yet another small update on Enhanced Combat Tracker (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22039-Ikael-s-extensions-for-Savage-Worlds-4-testing&p=186351&viewfull=1#post186351) which includes feature regarding targeting:

When trait or damage dices are dropped on token to make targeted roll that CT entry becomes targeted in CT automatically, ie. the CT entry is highlighted and arrow is drawn from attacker token to target token. Highlighting CT entry is important because highlighted entries are always visible in combat tracker and it will make CT damage confirmations on target entry visible as well.
Remember that there is preference option: "Reset targeting after turn", if you prefer to use drop-on-token targeting I recommend setting this option to ON to clear all previous targetings. This update also introduces new value in that option: "PC Only". This option will clear targeting information from PC entries only when their turn ends.

[Ikael]

Just wanted to pull up this community request (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22156-Hit-and-Damage-detection&p=189272&viewfull=1#post189272) again. We could make targeting more informative with different notification icons. If you feel up to help us, we would approciate it :)

[Mask_of_winter]

Again, the token sheet graphics would be perfect for this. https://www.peginc.com/store/savage-worlds-token-sheet/